The field of the disclosure relates generally to railway cars and related components, and more particularly to a hatch cover for a covered hopper railcar and a method of manufacturing the same.
Railway cars have been used for many years to transport a wide variety of commodities. For example, covered hopper railcars transport solid flowable materials such as, for example, plastic pellets, coal, grains, and rock within hopper compartments therein. Many known covered hopper railcars include roof ports defined within a roof structure on the top of the covered railcars. Such roof ports facilitate gravity loading of the solid flowable materials as well as post-filling and post-unloading of such covered hopper railcars. In order to protect the solid flowable materials loaded in the covered hopper railcars from exposure to the elements and the introduction of foreign materials, each of the roof ports are typically covered with a known hatch cover.
Many known hatch covers include at least one hold down strap (sometimes referred to as a support bar, compression member, or securement strap) with a hinging device on one end and a latching device on the opposite end. These hold down straps are typically fabricated of metal and require additional production costs to manufacture and install. In addition, at least some known hold down straps are coupled to the associated hatch covers through fasteners that require fastener penetrations in the hatch covers, thereby potentially forming a potential leak path for gases, such as an outward flow of inert nitrogen, used to provide a protective environment for those solid flowable materials that may be sensitive to oxygen and/or moisture found in air that may flow into the railcar. In addition, some known hatch covers do not include sealing gaskets, thereby decreasing the ability of the hatch covers to properly seal the inside of the hopper compartments. Also, some other known hatch covers include a sealing gasket arrangement as part of a complicated configuration, thereby increasing production costs to manufacture and install.